OVERLAND PARK, Kan., April 27, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Avista Corp, an energy production, transmission and distribution company, has been honored with the ‘Expanding Excellence Award’ for Best Customer Information Service Implementation, Level I, at CS Week 2016. Black & Veatch was the Program Manager for the award-winning Oracle Customer Care & Billing (CC&B) and IBM Maximo system project.
CS Week is an annual educational and customer service conference for utility professionals at electric, gas and water/wastewater utilities around the world. The Expanding Excellence Awards program honors outstanding contributions and innovations in utility customer service.
“Customer service will increasingly become the differentiator for world class utility organizations,” said Donald Parr, an Associate Vice President who specializes in customer operations and billing solutions for Black & Veatch’s Management Consulting business. “We are proud to have worked closely with Avista on complete implementation of the CC&B and Maximo systems.”
“Key to the successful simultaneous implementations of CC&B and Maximo systems, in addition to launching a redesigned customer bill, was having the right program manager. Black & Veatch provided Avista with key program leadership bringing extensive industry experience with projects of similar complexity to ours,” said Pat Dever, Avista’s chief data strategist and co-executive sponsor for the project.
Black & Veatch oversaw design, build and implementation of Avista’s complete CC&B and Maximo systems. The project, completed in 2015, included data conversion, integration, training, change management, and infrastructure development. On launch day, the fully integrated system mailed accurate and redesigned energy bills while employees successfully conducted transactions using the new system.
With more than 100 integration points between the CC&B and other critical systems, implementation exceeded expectations while maintaining service targets. Additionally, Black & Veatch’s program management model has been used by Avista for other major projects.
Editor’s Notes:
- Find out more about Black & Veatch’s approach to empowering customers and optimizing billing operations at bv.com/customer.
About Black & Veatch
Black & Veatch is an employee-owned, global leader in building critical human infrastructure in Energy, Water, Telecommunications and Government Services. Since 1915, we have helped our clients improve the lives of people in over 100 countries through consulting, engineering, construction, operations and program management. Our revenues in 2015 were US$3 billion. Follow us on www.bv.com and in social media.